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> Whatever China says must ALWAYS be a lie, on the other hand, the US numbers are not "suppressed," it's just incompetence. Well, this jibes with reality. I c
by usaar333 7y ago
> Whatever China says must ALWAYS be a lie, on the other hand, the US numbers are not "suppressed," it's just incompetence.
Well, this jibes with reality.
I could care less about actual case counts - few countries are close to having the capacity to test everyone so who cares.
What is a huge problem with China is the death statistics. Looking at Lombardy with 6k+ deaths with the outbreak not yet peaked, am I really supposed to believe that only 2.5k died in Wuhan (similar population)? The CFR outside Hubei is ridiculously low - only 1 death out of 1200 cases in Zhejiang (!)?
During China's outbreak, there were additionally lots of accusations of case data being completely made up (insufficient variance in daily numbers) and looking at basically every other country's quite noisy reports today, that was almost certainly true.
The implications are pretty vast: China's reporting actually made the disease seem less urgent than it really was. Perhaps tens of thousands of lives would have been saved had they been more transparent.
- bigpumpkin 7y agoThese claims have no basis in facts. The case fatality rate varies greatly depends on whether the health capacity is being overwhelmed, because when you don't have enough ICU beds or ventilators, your seriously ill patients cannot live. Lombardy experienced a greater strain on its medical system than Wuhan ever did. China sent 40,000 medical professionals from the rest of the country to Wuhan where has Lombardy had little outside aid. China also had universal masking whereas Italy never did. The real case count in Italy is in the 7 figures. When you do widespread testing as China did in Zhejiang you can find a lot of mild cases. Indeed, Iceland, which did the same, has 1020 cases and 2 deaths.
- taylodl 7y agoThat's interesting. I had not heard that but that raises the question of where did those 40,000 medical professionals practice medicine? Where did China get all their ventilators and PPEs? Did they need them? Once this is all over I hope all the countries get together and compare notes and experiences so we're all better prepared for the next pandemic.
- unsignedchar 7y agoIn most of the world, the lack of preparation seems to be more for structural and political reasons than due to lack of knowledge. NYT had a fascinating story on an effort in the US to scale up production of ventilators, that produced nothing in 14 years https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-ventilator-shortage.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-v...
- usaar333 7y agoDo you believe Zhejiang was as widely tested as Iceland? Their fatality rates are lower than the widely tested Iceland (or literally anywhere in the world), which still has a pandemic ongoing. In fact none of the province numbers are believable (https://bnonews.com/index.php/2019/12/tracking-coronavirus-china-data/ https://bnonews.com/index.php/2019/12/tracking-coronavirus-c...), with only Beijing and Henan barely in the "unlikely but possible" category. Wuhan's medical system was in complete crisis between lockdown and when the first field hospital opened 1.5w after: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3047613/china-coronavirus-wuhan-residents-describe-doomsday-scenes https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3047613/chin.... There's reports of entire families dying at home (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/18/coronavirus-kills-chinese-film-director-family-wuhan-covid-19 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/18/coronavirus-ki...) -- I am quite doubtful Lombardy has been hit harder than Wuhan. I will admit I'm wrong if China runs serological tests on Wuhan to determine the percent that were infected. I'll be extremely surprised if they do because the data will prove the point above (my guess? it would show 1M+ were infected, meaning only 2500 deaths was impossible).
- bigpumpkin 7y agoThe low rate of deaths in the rest of China shows that the lockdown of Wuhan works. The rest of China never had that many cases. Death being concentrated in one region is not an exclusive phenomenon in China. If you look at Korea's stats you'll realize there many provinces with zero deaths[1]: Incheon: 58 cases, 0 death Seoul: 426 cases, 0 death Gyeongnam 95 cases, 0 death Ulsan: 45 cases, 0 death Chungbok: 44 cases, 0 death Sejong 46 cases, 0 death Deajeon: 45 cases, 0 death Chungnam: 127 cases, 0 death Jeonbuk: 13 cases, 0 death Gwangju: 20 cases, 0 death Jeonam: 9 cases, 0 death Jeju: 9 cases, 0 death Airports: 202 cases, 0 death Deaths are only concentrated in 5 regions: Daegu: 6624 cases, 111 deaths Gyeongbuk: 1298 cases, 38 deaths Gyeonggi: 463 cases, 5 deaths, Busan: 118 cases, 3 deaths Gangwon: 36 cases, 1 death [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_S...
- Majromax 7y ago> When you do widespread testing as China did in Zhejiang you can find a lot of mild cases. Indeed, Iceland, which did the same, has 1020 cases and 2 deaths. Two significant notes, however: * China reports that its outbreak has largely resolved. The vast majority of the 1,000 cases in Iceland are still active, so we don't know how many deaths Iceland will eventually have. South Korea's current fatality rate still seems to be around 1%, with many cases yet to resolve. * China seems to include only symptomatic cases in its total. That should bias its fatality rate upwards, since the denominator does not include any asymptomatic people who resolved without developing a full case of COVID-19. (Note that this will also be true for jurisdictions that require symptoms for testing. I believe that SK tested many asymptomatic people, but the US for example is not.) Note that the 1%CFR estimates are based on full access to medical resources. When medical systems are overwhelmed as in Italy, we expect that number to increase from that baseline. Jurisdictions that report a markedly lower fatality rate are likely to have had systematic problems in identifying or reporting on case totals.
- bigpumpkin 7y agoGuangdong China: 320,000 tests by Feb 28, 2820 positive cases. Positive rate: 0.8% Iceland: 3,787 tests by March 18, 330 positive cases. Positive rate: 8.7% Clearly Guangdong did more testing with respect to its epidemic than Iceland. Let's look at New York State: 172,360 tests by March 29, 59513 positive cases Positive rate: 34.5%
- jariel 7y agoIceland as of March 30 has done 16K tests. Which is 45K/million people (4.5% of their entire pop), they have 6.6% infection rate. [1] Hubei population is 60M. So they'd have to do 2.7 Million tests to have the same degree of testing at Iceland. Even with an excessive lockdown, it seems that just on this issue alone, China's numbers look really quite wrong. That there was a breakout in other parts of the country and almost no deaths look very suspicious. Combined with the fact that all public Chinese information is part of an 'orchestration of public opinion' (i.e. propaganda effort) and is not based in any reality, so of course, there's a credibility problem to begin with. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing
- bogomipz 7y ago>"Well, this jives with reality." You want "jibes" here. Jive means to talk nonsense: https://www.grammarbook.com/homonyms/jibe-jive.asp https://www.grammarbook.com/homonyms/jibe-jive.asp
- usaar333 7y agothanks for the tip; will edit
- derefr 7y agoHuh. I figured that "jive" was a musical term first-and-foremost, and therefore to say "jiving with" was a bit like saying "grooving with" or more generally "in sync with." But apparently the use of the word "jive" to mean "talking nonsense" is the older, original usage, and the type of music/dance is named after the term, rather than the other way around. TIL.
- bogomipz 7y agoNo I think its the other way around. "Jive" was still in use up until the late 70s - The Bee Gees hit "Jive Talkin'" and a well-known scene form the comedy movie "Airplane" both being examples. It is/was almost always used in connection with speaking i.e "don't jive talk me" The earlier musical dance/reference is the really just the Johnny Otis song which is actually just a Bo Diddley rip-off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxU995zbfno https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxU995zbfno
- StavrosK 7y agoPlus, "couldn't care less", though I'm fighting a losing fight.
- neltnerb 7y agoMaybe they could care less? Yes, it's a losing fight. Of course, it's probably more literally true that they could care less, after all, they care enough to post about it on the internet. They probably don't do that for... um... articles about the 1984 Honda Accord after all? Oh English.
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y agoHonestly does anyone believe China’s death statistics? I think the west believes than more than even those living under communist rule in China, and that says a lot.
- GuB-42 7y agoChina locked down Wuhan much earlier than Italy did. And they did it harder. Totalitarian states have an advantage in situations like that. The numbers are probably not accurate, but there is no place where the numbers are accurate. Case fatality rates go from less than 1% to more than 10%. In France, on the official website where they give the numbers, it is clearly written "we don't test everyone, the actual number of cases is higher", and deaths are "of COVID-19 patients dying in hospitals". All numbers are made up, because there is no way to know the actual numbers. And don't tell me that anything after January was China's fault. It is not like governments around the world didn't know what happened there. Maybe the general public wasn't well informed but it is trivial for a government to be aware of an event of such scale. No, China may be to blame for the initial cases, but for the pandemic phase, it is completely our fault.
- viklove 7y agoChina has a long, long history of suppressing access to information though. Not just in reporting false data, but also in limiting the press from investigating issues themselves. Are you honestly saying that Japan and the US have a comparable history? > And don't tell me that anything after January was China's fault. It is not like governments around the world didn't know what happened there. Both are possible, and both are very likely. China suppressed information to save face, and many other countries were incompetent in responding to the information they did have access to.
- rfoo 7y ago> Are you honestly saying that Japan and the US have a comparable history? This is exactly the point of parent comment: people are simply repeating the same narrative based on "the history" as if we are still in cold war and it is impossible to know what really happened in China, while this is no longer true. Surely the situation is not ideal, in that you still need hours to read between lines and investigate, China must improve on this, but the virus just showed us one thing: being dismissive about anything coming out of China may lead to a global disaster. We should either try to understand, or cut ties with China.
- tensor 7y agoChina's reporting in no way made it seem less urgent. The reported fatality rate hasn't significantly changed from their reports.
- viklove 7y agoThey're reporting 2.5k deaths in Wuhan, while most estimates and other sources put it closer to 20k+. A factor of 10 isn't much of a change?
- tensor 7y agoI don't deal in speculation and rumours sorry. The 2-3% assuming you have medical treatment has held true. The 10+% hospitalization has held true. The lack of response from the US is in no way due to China's reporting, it's due to the US propaganda and incompetence.
- viklove 7y ago> I don't deal in speculation and rumours sorry. But you trust a known liar (the Chinese government)? Sounds like you're a bit biased here. > US propaganda So the US spreads propaganda, but not China? I don't understand how an educated individual could spout this nonsense anywhere. edit: Am I getting downvotes because HN thinks the Chinese government doesn't have a history of lying? Anyone remember Tiananmen Square, the country of Taiwan, the country of Tibet, or the Uyghur Muslims?
- mikem170 7y agoBoth the U.S. and China spread propaganda. Both governments do bad things. Both do good things. The world is not black and white. You don't need to pit the two against each other. The world is a big place, with a varied history. We're all people.
- gnusty_gnurc 7y agoThe US doesn't have an Ai Fen [1] as far as I can tell. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/coronavirus-wuhan-doctor-ai-fen-speaks-out-against-authorities https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/coronavirus-wu...
- mdpopescu 7y agoMaybe the Chinese actually counted the people dying of the flu, instead of every death where the deceased also had the virus.
- dboreham 7y agoIt seems that if you have the virus in your body (test positive), and you die, then with a high probability the virus caused your death (since it only stays in the body for ~10 days).
- malandrew 7y agoYes, but if you have comorbidities, it's easy for people to claim the cormorbidity is the cause of death.
- zaroth 7y ago> I could care less about actual case counts - few countries are close to having the capacity to test everyone so who cares. Indeed, the total positive test count tells you more about changes in your testing capacity and testing criteria than it tells you about the infected population. I suppose it’s helpful in establishing the lower bound, but with no error bars on the possible upper bound. Testing a statistically valid random sample of the population would be neither difficult or expensive. Running these tests every few days across every major metropolitan areas would be extremely useful data to report the current active infection rates. This is useful even without an antibody test, but of course much more useful with an antibody test, because then you know not just active infection percentages but total infected percentages. I can’t begin to speculate why this data is either not being collected or not being made available. Death rate is somewhat useful but very lagging and also limited by not knowing the true IFR. The only other proxy we have for guessing the total infection rate in a population is the percentage of positive tests. In NY there are districts which have 50% of tests coming back positive, which is so high as to be almost unbelievable. If that data is correct and at all indicative of the general population, it is, counter-intuitively, extremely good news. https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-data-map.pdf https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-d...
- pas 7y agoWhat was the average age in Wuhan?